Redstate

Way too easy

Not to attack the Democratic party in the same way you didn't defend Mr. Dean.

This raises an interesting question, Just who are they going to be really beholden to on Monday ?

There are few things in life as a Democrat that drive you crazier than hearing Terry speak.

Front men your party has had in many years.

He's an able fundraiser, but I do not find his strategic skills to be otherwise impressive.

His shilling for Senator Clinton was depressing, not because it was for Senator Clinton, but because of the manner in which he did it.

2002 and 2004 were not great years for us, you may recall. Frontloading the primary calendar to help Hillary Clinton was poorly thought out in addition to being a crappy thing for the DNC chair to do. I could go on but I won't.

But I think I will take my own advice

In fact I know that it's true. He makes thinking Democrats worry deeply, and my Democrat friends have told me so, so I can vouch for you.

Here's a suggestion: Vote Republican. Instead of attacking the Republican Party, help it succeed. It's not as bad as Terry McAuliffe makes it out to be, and you might be able to respect yourself more in the morning.

Defend Liberty -- Join the NRA | Live in Massachusetts? Join GOAL.

I appreciate your kindness, though I will politely decline your advice.

Run some candidates with whom I can agree on a majority of the issues and we'll talk.

Lets take some of the big ones.

1. Do you feel the government can provide healthcare more efficiently than the private sector ?

2. Do you feel the government spends your money well ?

3. Do you think anyone should receive a job or a position because of race ?

4. Do you think an immediate withdraw from Iraq is anyone's best interest ? (Well aside from Al Quaeda)

5. If you tax Windfall profits what will happen to the supplies of the commodities taxed ?

Most of those are not my particular issues, but what the heck, I'm game.

1. I believe it will leave fewer people lacking coverage. I do not necessarily believe it will be more efficient.
2. I think my government spends my money in a variety of ways, some of which I approve of, and some of which I think are no better than setting it alight.
3. No, I do not. To expand on that slightly, however well-intentioned Affirmative Action was, such a program is only defensible for a generation or so. After that you've pretty much learned if you're correcting the underlying systemic issues that gave rise to the need in the first place.
4. I do not think a rapid withdrawal would, no. I do think a fairly orderly and moderately quick withdrawal would, yes. I am willing to support keeping a division or so of troops handy for heavy lifting, if the Iraqis want us there.
5. Nothing particularly good for consumers.

If you'd like to be constructive, why not actually ask me what matters to me, as opposed to cherry-picking those positions you feel you can most easily attack, thus nearly creating a strawman? At least one by implication.

Setting aside every single issue on which I disagree with the Republican Party, I can explain very simply why I am disinclined to vote for most of your candidates:

The people who say that government cannot competently execute have been trying like hell to prove it for seven years.

Fix that, and I'll be more receptive.

As we have just demonstrated I don't know what they are, so I can hardly ask you.

but followups to logical conclusions

1. If private healthcare is more efficient than government provided won't more people have it at lower price ?

2. Where is your balance point ? and once again shouldn't you be spending your money ? Not fueling a kleptocratic process in washington ? (That is bipartisan btw)

3. If you don't support the endless affirmative action programs how do you reconcile yourself to candidates that do. Or for that matter a party that has made it taboo to question them.

4. Well if we can do a moderate withdrawal and we aren't taking any significant casualties why not stay until the job is done ? Plus why are you on the side that is either calling for a rapid abandonment or lying about it ?

5. Consumers being the 300+ million Americans that use the products. Then why are you supporting a party that doesn't agree with you on this one and reflexively wastes the country's time with it ?

1) Single payer government run healthcare is much different than what Edwards proposed and Clinton/Obama copied. If a Medicare style plan is offered to everyone as an option to various private plans then you have a competitive arena. How level a playing field will depend on whether all plans are required to accept everyone who applies or if they can cherry pick healthy people by denying coverage to high cost patients as they currently do. Lower price means nothing if people can be denied coverage based on things beyond their control.

2) Government spends my money poorly. Lets ignore everything but discretionary spending. That's not spent very well in my opinion but both parties suck at it big time...

3) Affirmative action should be phased out, with the caveat that companies who can be shown to be practicing discriminatory hiring, firing, etc who receive government money or contracts should be penalized.

4) National Guard. Regular Army soldiers knew when signing up they could be deployed anywhere including overseas. The Nation Guard whose lives are being financially ruined by being forced to take huge pay cuts. My neighbor's bank is just waiting for him to return so they can foreclose and he is not too happy right now... Not to mention none of them expected multiple year long plus tours away from their families unless this country was really at war and not a policing action.

5) Let's windfall profit Google. No commodity involved there! On the other hand, at oil costs today there is no reason to continue to provide incentives to oil companies. Just making sure they pay fair royalties, leasing, etc and everyone will be happy. As far as I can tell though, they still have some sweetheart deals from when oil was very low. That's a problem because that's money that we can spend elsewhere...

Most of those are not my particular issues, but what the heck, I'm game.

1. I believe it will leave fewer people lacking coverage. I do not necessarily believe it will be more efficient.
2. I think my government spends my money in a variety of ways, some of which I approve of, and some of which I think are no better than setting it alight.
3. No, I do not. To expand on that slightly, however well-intentioned Affirmative Action was, such a program is only defensible for a generation or so. After that you've pretty much learned if you're correcting the underlying systemic issues that gave rise to the need in the first place.
4. I do not think a rapid withdrawal would, no. I do think a fairly orderly and moderately quick withdrawal would, yes. I am willing to support keeping a division or so of troops handy for heavy lifting, if the Iraqis want us there.
5. Nothing particularly good for consumers.

If you'd like to be constructive, why not actually ask me what matters to me, as opposed to cherry-picking those positions you feel you can most easily attack, thus nearly creating a strawman? At least one by implication.

Setting aside every single issue on which I disagree with the Republican Party, I can explain very simply why I am disinclined to vote for most of your candidates:

The people who say that government cannot competently execute have been trying like hell to prove it for seven years.

Fix that, and I'll be more receptive.

Setting aside every single issue on which I disagree with the Republican Party, ...

Why not give us a list of the significant ones so we can gauge your true persona.

You seem to have a significant degree of agreement with some of Joliphant's points yet you insist that you will not vote for a Republican because the one's you haven't voted for have disappointed. Well guess what, many of them have disappointed us too but that doesn't mean we want to give up the entire fight.

Perhaps had you been willing to vote for some Republicans candidates on the issues they would be sitting in Congress today and not have disappointed either of us.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.

I'm willing to write a blog on this topic. My concern, an honest concern, is that I'll get dogpiled for some of my views, or my attempts to clarify or defend them. It has happened here a bit.

I opposed this war before it happened, vocally, for reasons that turned out to be pretty valid. Whether or not you think it makes sense now I was on the mark in 2002.

I honestly think that a single-payer basic health care system is our best bet. There are advantages to this, costs that could be avoided (emergency care without health insurance being an obvious one, but having healthier neighbors helps you and your kids as well). I do not think it should be an extravagant plan that covers all manner of things, but I do think a safety net is needed. I consider it a moral imperative.

I believe in diplomacy and international frameworks to solve as many of our issues abroad as is practical. I do not oppose the use of force per se, but I do think it can be avoided providing we are competent in both intelligence and diplomacy.

I believe in fixing our public schools, not accelerating the flight of the middle and upper class from them to private schools. If people want to send their kids to private schools I'm all for that. I might even support the notion of vouchers if I wasn't convinced it's really just the thin end of the wedge, intentionally or otherwise.

I do believe in Social Security, despite its flaws. I think attempts to privatize it, or allow people to opt out of it, partially or completely, will only serve to kill it off eventually.

I believe that denying homosexuals the ability to codify a relationship with another consenting adult is lunacy and outright mean. I'd prefer that the government got the hell out of the marriage business altogether, leaving that to churches (and so forth) and solely deal with civil unions for all.

I believe in a significantly greater number of immigrants allowed into this country. I do not support an amnesty, but I do think we're a little silly in how we show preference for potential new Americans based on their blood ties to current ones, as opposed to their skills.

I could go on. Perhaps I will blog about it.

But just to warm up a bit.

1. Really ? If you felt that Saddam did not have WMD and you aren't an intelligence analyst with access to classified material what you mean is you guessed and got lucky because it was 50/50

2. If you take a look at Medicare that is already just not so. I can give you doctors offices numbers that will be very happy to express their displeasure with medicare eliminating costs.

3. You might want to rephrase this one as its insulting by implication. It also shows you are repeating a talking point without understanding it.

4. Well aside from the fact that SS returns a net loss to almost everyone that participates in it what are its flaws ?

5.Are you saying that it is a mainstream position of the right that homosexuals should not be allowed to enter into relationships ? or enter into legally binding agreements defining those relationships ?

Government and marriage is about procreation. It is about dealing with the creation of future citizens. It is not about giving cohabitants a tax deduction and insurance benefits(This is what the argument really is about)

6. Why ?? I believe you mentioned you were in the I.T. field. You must be very generous as to be willing to destroy your own earning potential.

Not in IT. I'm a law student. Just one more year to go.

I'll consider a blog, as I'd said.

Good evening to you.

It cheapens your costs of services and anyone who does come in for the most part won't be able to compete with you in the job market.

I'd love to see your views. But please preface it with why, so as to quell much of the likely problems. And I certainly want to know your age and if your legal pursuits are just after a college degree or returning many years later. I think this will build a perspective as to what you have done to reach your positions.

_____________________________

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle

1) I don't believe he mentioned he didn't believe Saddam had WMD's anywhere. There were lots of people who thought invading Iraq could open up a can of worms because of the various factions in the country and it's history. I assume this had a lot to do with Bush Sr's decision not to invade in the first Gulf War. Other people thought Iraq wasn't nearly the WMD threat that Iran, Libya, etc was. I don't know his position, but you're 50/50 analogy probably isn't fair because it assumes that was the only target, and WMD was the only criteria.

#2) Not sure exactly what you were referring to, but in some states a single private insurer may have a large percentage of the population not covered by Medicare/etc and you'll find a lot of doctors complain about this situation as they get squeezed rather tightly and you get a lot of the same problems a single payer system has anyway such as what is covered, rates, hospitals, etc...

#3) Ditto on not understanding your third point, but I found nothing insulting there.

#4) SS. The problem is the word "security". If an individual makes poor choices in a private plan is the government going to step in and help them out anyway? If so then privatization could be bad because the potential downside is greater than the upside for everyone else. The other problem is we don't have the trillions it would take to change the system over to what Bush was proposing. We'd probably be far better off as a country if we balanced the budget and the dollar ended up appreciating and whatever private investments people did have went up because of that.

#5) I actually like the idea that states just recognize civil unions. Then you can call it whatever you, or your church, wants to call it and the whole argument about the State recognizing same-sex "marriages" goes away. Lots of same-sex couples have children and raise them, and, yes, there are plenty of individuals (of both parties) who make it harder for them by denying them legal protections. If procreation and future citizens are the most important reason then why make it harder?

#6) Skill based immigration is a fair position to take. The ability to attract the most talented individuals means the greater likelihood for discovering something, patenting an invention, etc and thus greater prosperity for the country as a whole. The fact that the individual would actually be in the US would help wages far more than offshoring the work to a low cost country where you could probably hire 2-3 people instead of one and get none of the long term benefits to the US. I'd be for accepting a couple million of the finest people who applied to enter the US, in exchange for all companies using the e-validate or whatever that thing is that makes sure you aren't in the country illegally...

1. Libya is no longer a WMD threat so the invasion neutralized 2 ouut of 4 and syria is now much easier to deal with. BTW what metric is the war an abject failure ? By any measure it has been a singular success.

2. In those states its usually due to mandates to the insurance companies and sweetheart deals given to the blues. So its not just the doctors but the insured that are upset about the lack of choice.

3. Of course you wouldn't It's not as if the current has negotiated in international frameworks is it ? I mean they are cowboys that draw their guns and shoot first.

Of course you miss the administrations Asia Pacific negotiations on the environment.

The six way talks with north Korea which have had much better success than the Clinton administration.

The numerous U.N. resolutions that Iraq violated,

So yes stating that you prefer diplomacy makes you out to be a condescending twit

4. NICE STRAWMAN, we don't have the money to fund SS as it is. So one way or another it has to change anyway. That means either retirees get less later or people paying into the system now get even less down the road for more up front.

5. You obviously don't understand the issue. The right they are fighting for is the right to fight over the children in a divorce.
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6. You have never heard of the H1B visa.

I opposed this war before it happened, vocally, for reasons that turned out to be pretty valid. Whether or not you think it makes sense now I was on the mark in 2002.

Without specifying on what basis you opposed "this war" one can only speculate why you opposed it, "vocally". Unless you had access to intelligence unavailable to the intelligence services of the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, France, Denmark, Egypt, Jordan, et al (all of whom agreed that Saddam had WMD and would use them) then you were guessing. Unless you had access to intelligence unavailable to Democrats in the House and Senate (e.g. Clinton, Kerry, Rockefeller, et al) who argued that Saddam was an existential threat to the West and the US in particular, then you were just guessing.

Oh, and by the way "the war" everyone was arguing about, and that you apparently objected to, lasted all of about 30 days and the coalition was eminently successful in its mission. The part the that didn't go right was the post-war period and I seriously doubt that anyone can provide concrete evidence that they could have, or did, accurately predict what happened and the actual reasons beforehand. And no fair using "well anyone could tell you that {insert Faction A here} didn't get along with {insert Faction B here}."

I honestly think that a single-payer basic health care system is our best bet. There are advantages to this, costs that could be avoided (emergency care without health insurance being an obvious one, but having healthier neighbors helps you and your kids as well). I do not think it should be an extravagant plan that covers all manner of things, but I do think a safety net is needed. I consider it a moral imperative.

First, it is illegal for any hospital in this country to refuse emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay. The costs of emergency care are what they are and they are no higher or lower because the patient does or does not have health insurance.

Second, there is a big difference between good health insurance and good health care. Just because someone does not have insurance does not mean they do not get care. Every significant community in this country has a public hospital of one kind or another withing transportation distance. These hospitals will, just like any hospital, attempt to get payment for services. But at the end of the day the public covers bills not payed by patients. I think you will find this to be the situation in most, if not all, parts of the country.

Oh, and something like 25% of the {queue scary music here} 40 million uninsured liberals like to toss around are guess who, the illegal aliens everyone keeps talking about.

You may honestly believe that a single payer system is best for us but obviously a great many people do not see it that way. There is no irrefutable evidence that such a system is "best", or even works well. The UK has had to resort to rationing health care using some truly draconian arguments. Almost every day we hear anecdotal reports of Canadians coming to the US for procedures --- not because Canadian health care is inferior or they can't get a procedure in Canada but because they can't wait as long as it will take to get them.

I believe in diplomacy and international frameworks to solve as many of our issues abroad as is practical. I do not oppose the use of force per se, but I do think it can be avoided providing we are competent in both intelligence and diplomacy.

Do you honestly believe that we do not do that today? How many US Security Council resolutions do you think it would have taken to get Saddam to comply? Just one more? Two more? How many more UN resolutions, how many more European Union groveling missions will get Iran to back off nuclear weapons?

I believe in fixing our public schools, not accelerating the flight of the middle and upper class from them to private schools. If people want to send their kids to private schools I'm all for that. I might even support the notion of vouchers if I wasn't convinced it's really just the thin end of the wedge, intentionally or otherwise.

The standard liberal "solution" to fixing public schools is to throw more money at problem, usually in terms of teacher salaries. Thus far 40+ years of this "solution" has accomplished nothing but demands for yet more money.

I do believe in Social Security, despite its flaws. I think attempts to privatize it, or allow people to opt out of it, partially or completely, will only serve to kill it off eventually.

So perhaps you are pleased that those you do support have done such a stellar job of ensuring that Social Security does not sink under its own weight, a situation acknowledged by every reasonable analysis. Although Obama opposes "privatization" I'm hard pressed to find much difference between his plan for an individually controlled portable investment plan, and the plan put forward by George Bush 7 years ago. Its different because a Democrat proposed it I guess.

I believe that denying homosexuals the ability to codify a relationship with another consenting adult is lunacy and outright mean. I'd prefer that the government got the hell out of the marriage business altogether, leaving that to churches (and so forth) and solely deal with civil unions for all.

Sorry, most of this same-sex marriage stuff is a red-herring. Nothing in current law prevents homosexuals from drawing a will to establish inheritance for their partner (exactly as a married couple would/should do); similarly nothing prevents homosexuals from establishing their partner as their health care surrogate, again exactly as a married couple would/should do; all the usual smoke screen issues.

I believe in a significantly greater number of immigrants allowed into this country. I do not support an amnesty, but I do think we're a little silly in how we show preference for potential new Americans based on their blood ties to current ones, as opposed to their skills.

Aside from a few xenophobes, who inhabit both sides of the political spectrum by the way, I'd appreciate learning why you think Republicans are opposed to immigration --- and especially immigrants with skills useful to the nation. And, I think if you really look into it you will find it is liberals who promote the preference for blood ties over skills. Perhaps you aren't really paying attention to the immigration argument coming from this side of the aisle. Most opposition on the right is to ILLEGAL aliens and amnesty as a reward for breaking the law.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.

Would you rather Obama or McCain make the next couple of Supreme Court appointments? Especially with a likely heavily Democratic Senate, McCain would probably name people who are only moderately conservative. Obama on the other hand would be able to get approval for anyone, no matter how far left. And don't forget, it was the liberals on the court who gave us Kelo too.
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Obama's guiding principle: "I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks."